2wheeler

Hello Pat, Sorry, I was in Germany on Wednesday. I will be there this coming Wednesday. The Phoenix has a house band for the first half and then invites people to "sit in" in the second half. The quality of the night is a bit variable, depending on how good the house band are that night, how the audience is and who turns up to play. Some incredibly good players drop in now and again so it is quite exciting. I really enjoy it, also as a social event since it is hard to get out now that I have children. Nick

Hello Pat. If you want to find jazz players, come down to the [url="http://www.thephoenixinnyork.co.uk/"]Phoenix Inn[/url] on a Wednesday night for the jam session. Hope to see you there, Nick

There can be exceptions to all the rules but ... you should be letting your thumb come around from the back of the neck to the side of the neck and hitting the G with your 3rd finger. When your hand starts to roll around the neck like this, the 4th finger doesn't really reach anything useful any more. Ultimately, this should be the start of a nice smooth transition into thumb position but you don't need to play in thumb position if you are only going up to the G.

Vauxhall Zafira takes double bass, small amp and FIVE people. And they're cheap.

Again, Bilbo is on the money. Start playing the tunes, learn them inside out until you start doing your own thing naturally and then you will know what everybody is on about in their books/videos etc. Scott Devine's online videos are great, by the way.

Bilbo's suggestions are excellent. Great tunes with enough harmonic complexity to allow you to show them what you can do. Of the two I think I would take Miss Jones but either would be great.

Whatever you do, do not use door stops. They mark everything, including doors.

Yes, I think I am going to get along to this. I certainly need to plan a long way ahead because I do a German trade fair the week leading up to it.

Every single song I try turns out be harder than I hoped

Correct! Still loving it too [quote name='artisan' timestamp='1365175269' post='2036398'] I do believe he bought a very nice 2eq ray from me a while back complete with Nordstrand p/up. [/quote]

Good questions. Despite the temptations of versatility, I seem to get on better with really simple instruments. 4 strings, one pickup, a tone control and everything else is either in your hands or just not there. That seems to work best for me. [quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1365114869' post='2035693'] Go on then will it be like Qi if it say "why" nee naw nee naw! Why passive why only one pickup? How many strings? 5 being the correct answer btw : lol: [/quote]

I am thinking of getting a mid to high quality passive single pup bass. £700-900. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I have put the advanced book on my amazon wish list. If it turns out to be too hard, I will get the intermediate one. Thanks for the tip-off!

Great book. If you compare the star recordings to Jamerson's originals you will appreciate the enormity of Jamerson's genius.

Buy 2nd hand and you should not lose much when re-selling. The teacher probably is the best connection to other children who are just outgrowing suitable instruments. £50 should get you a usable outfit (violin, case and bow) but be wary of anything much cheaper. When my daughter needed to move up to a 3/4 size instrument, I bought one for £400 because I couldn't find a cheaper one that I* liked and I didn't feel I would lose anything between buying and selling. When she moved up to a 4/4 violin, she got my back-up violin *Yes, it probably should have been her decision but let's face it, it's my money!

Thanks to all for organising, sharing gear and just showing up. Had a great time, learnt a lot, made new friends

1. Scott Devine 2. Dave Marks MarloweDK is also great but you are mainly just shown the lick and have to take it yourself from there. I find some of the original top 10 highly questionable but maybe that's just me.

This seems like it would be immense fun and great inspiration but there is no way I can afford the time and money for fun stuff these days. I am lucky enough to have a great teacher already so I don't feel any real need to go. Have a great time, all of you who do go

Hello Chris, I probably shouldn't be doing this (well I definitely shouldn't be doing it on work time!) but you did ask for feedback. You have done a great job but I think some of your analysis is a bit mathematical and you could let your ears do the work, giving you IMHO a more useful picture of the harmony. To be specific, "For Once in my Life" bar 2, I would have said that the Eb is the passing note and the C# creates a surround (chromatic notes either side of the target note). On the 3rd beat of that bar, the D to A perfect fourth strongly indicates a D chord. Jamerson has reharmonised (he does this a lot) and used a D rather than the indicated F#dim. This helps set up the repeating D/G pattern that is coming and is a more natural harmony anyway. That's how I hear it and that is my "map" that I use to try to get the right feel when playing this. But that's just my interpretation and there is certainly nothing wrong with what you have done.

The big-boned Nate Watts doesn't seem to have held Stevie Wonder back that much!

Hello.

I am also relatively new to playing in bands and have got my fingers burnt. It seems to me there are basically two kinds of bands:[list] [*]Sometimes there is an effective (or actual) MD and it's very simple, you just have to be able to agree with them on what you play. Then, away you go. [*]More often with low key bands, there is a very inefficient but great fun collective ideas kind of thing. Be really careful that you see eye-to-eye with the other people before joining a band like this because otherwise it is going to drive you nuts [/list] I am definitely only joining the second kind of band when I know the band members and get on with them. There tends to be a shortage of bass players because:[list=1] [*]Not that many people play bass. [*]Some people who play bass really are not that good (that might include me ) [*]Some people who play bass really well struggle to reign themselves in to play what the tune needs and not just show off their chops. [/list] This means you should be able to find a band where you fit in but you might have to look around for a bit. And being in a band where you don't totally fit in is a great way to connect with lots of other people!

Mike is a great guy and totally reliable in all PMs, phone calls and the eventual meet up to buy an Adam Black electro acoustic bass.

Hello Joel, I really like BGM. I enjoy the lessons/columns from expert players. One thing I find a bit frustrating is that the reviews don't make head-to-head comparisons. Have you read the tests in RiDE magazine? They are more like the kind of comparisons that buyers actually have to do when they go out to choose kit. Nick